


Any Way You Want It, That's the Way You Need It

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Everyone Is Still Alive, Fluff, Growing Pains, Horns, Instinctive Behaviors, Lusus Blurring Kinda?, M/M, Poor Karkat, Quadrant Blurring, SBURB, So Much Xeno Funktown, Some Humor, Super Mega Ultra FLUFF, Weird Troll Everything, Weird Troll Foods, Weird Xeno Stuff, Will Be Explained Later, slight AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-22
Updated: 2015-06-07
Packaged: 2018-03-19 00:34:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3589656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are unforeseen repercussions to being a mutant.  John is not prepared to let Karkat go through them alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So yes. This happened. Because I don't have enough stories to keep track of.  
> But at least I'm finally posting some of the stuff that has been lounging on my hard drive for years? Eh? EH?

The most important part of childhood was marching out the back door, brandishing his trusty stick in full preparation to poke all things and see if they hissed or jumped or spat up anything interesting. These were the moments that would define him as a man.

Now, post-apocalypse, John Egbert has gotten a Smithsonian museum of pokable hilarity—this one alien guy—and you could count the hours on the clock by John wondering if Karkat is making loud, interesting noises somewhere. The Age of Exploration definitely felt like this. Precious few secrets left to discover and most are heavily guarded (Karkat has a really fast right jab and wow, does he hit hard), but all you have to do is dig one secret out from the Fortress of Surly Growls, and it will pay its ransom in gold.

Karkat is: movie nights under unfamiliar stars, an oversized, powerwalking sweater, and John accidentally laughing in really inappropriate situations.

So you can understand how vital John’s best friend is to his well-being. Now let’s talk about the whole purring thing.

Who’d expect it from the scary gray insect-gargoyle race, right? But trolls really do purr—noisy happy cat warbles. Kanaya starts glowing when she does it. Right before she pretends it never happened.

Troll-purring has to be the worst-kept secret in the Game. Terezi makes soft humming noises at Dave over breakfast, and John can catch Sollux raspily serenading computer screens full of code. Tavros and his lusii make a purr chorus in the bathroom when he’s brushing his teeth. It’s really just hunched, grouchy Karkat who doesn’t ever purr. He shows he’s happy by doing the machine gun bone-popping thing, and maybe glaring at you less.

Frankly though, Karkat is just terrible at _affection_. He falls asleep on John during a movie one time and John is all, _aww, he must be really tired after telling me where to shove my sass, poor li’l grouch._ Then, when Karkat wakes up, he panics himself away to end of the couch and launches into a bizarrely formal rant about trusting John or something, makes the moment totally weird, and ends up somehow convincing John to apologize for having let Karkat drool on him(?) John even tried to tell Karkat he didn’t mind. He, uh, trusts Karkat too, because they are best buddies forever! Karkat kicked him in the shin.  
  
That’s just how they are, though. Sometimes John plays an teensy little prank and gets shouted at for an hour while he picks the lint off his god tier pajamas, but friendship is the force that makes him get Karkat snacks when he’s done freaking out.

This week John has been fiddling with the lint _a lot_! Karkat has been on a warpath. There’s no helpful indication of why he suddenly hates everyone, just a lot of emphatic hand gestures and creative use of the word ‘expunge’. Yesterday his voice cut out right in mid-bellow and the unanticipated silence made John gasp. Karkat seethed visibly, like not being able to spit the words made the anger worse.

Before Karkat actually tried to tackle someone to the ground (Dave, it would probably be Dave), John had suggested a break for romcoms. It’s a go-to for mending fences and obviously John was planning to coax out a few clues on what was eating his troll buddy, between more expunging rants. Right now he’s just relieved that Karkat has finally calmed down.

He’s deflated into a solid line of warmth up John’s side, wide eyes reflecting the flickers of the TV screen. And because it’s Karkat, he always sounds like machine gun fire when he tries to relax. All trolls can tighten their bones into defensive formation (they are basically tiny, adorable mecha), but only Karkat manages to walk around with his skeleton clenched into a fist all the time. Every time he and John hang out, at some point the conversation will be interrupted by the rapidfire _tk_ - _pop-tkk-pop_ sound of bones collapsing out of order.

And John? Why, John is patting himself on the back. This movie is sappy and sad and John maintains that 90% of these problems could be solved if everybody would sit down at a big table and talk about their feelings—so of course Karkat eats it up. He looks singularly pathetic right now. His knees are balancing his chin, pointed ears flopped low, and red tears trace the hard outlines of his frown. John inevitably leans over, mopping one side of Karkat’s face with his sleeve. Karkat kinda chimes softly under his hand. John smiles with tenderness. After a while, you just stop questioning the weird troll noises.

“Whuh?” Karkat lifts his head (oh man, the other side of his face is all red-streaked. So many dumb baby noises right now). His eyes drift half-shut as John dabs under them. Something is exploding audibly onscreen, and John doesn’t even mind that he’s missing the good part because Karkat tilts into him, jutting a scowl his way. “What’s with _you_ , Egbert?”

Those chimes sound like that thing you can do with water glasses, but in hiccup form.

The whole sad Karkat thing is kryptonite for not wanting to touch him, though. If you’re looking for an explanation about why it is so easy for John to take Karkat’s shit, that’s because he’s been there for some of the nightmares. When he’s half-awake and shaking, Karkat will confess to a thousand crimes and John can’t even tell him it’s not his fault because Karkat just fake-laughs and shakes his head like _poor pitiful human, I know I am a piece of shit_. He needs so many more hugs than he’s gotten.

“Duh, cause you’re gonna stain the couch,” John answers.

Karkat blinks a few times. Another stuttering chime fills John’s ears. That’s kind of cool; the last time John thought about the piano, the world had only been a _little bit_ ended. When John’s hands lift, red has flooded Karkat’s cheeks.

 _Uh-oh,_ thinks John before Karkat shoves him into the cushions.

“Would you just look at all these _functional limbs_ I have,” the troll growls. “I can wipe my own griefdrizzle.” A fragment of another chime trips out of his scowl. Karkat deflates palpably against John’s back. “ _Ugh_.” What is Karkat doing now? Is he trying to tear his hair out? John wrestles an arm free.  
  
By the time the next series of explosions are on screen, Karkat has tumped over into John’s side, and keeps making that musical chime in short little bursts. He is such a dorkface. John wipes his face until Karkat pinches his ear. He is a comfortable furnace against John’s ribs.  
  
This is nice.

 

0000

 

And then Karkat slumps into the breakfast hall with a slice of toasted grubloaf and about cracks his head open on the breakfast table. The _whack_ is loud enough for John to be floating a foot above his seat, wielding a forkful of egg that probably will not help Karkat if he just concussed himself. When Karkat follows this heroic introduction with an unsteady warble of those chimes from last night, oscillating up and down like he’s singing, John is officially, shall we say, _concerned_.

“Uh, Karkat?” Karkat muffles a creaky growl into the table when John swoops closer.  
  
“Shut the fuck up, John.” Oh, good. He will probably make it through the night.

“Why are you singing at the table?”

Karkat’s voice comes out impatient. “And just how in the fuck am I singing?”

John peels his head off of the table. Karkat’s eyes are glazed and his skin feels a little too warm; the bags under his eyes are more pronounced than ever. John is now making distressed noises. Karkat should not be sick. Karkat’s head is heavy in his hands. The look he gives John suggests John should back away before he gets covered in teeth marks, but if John lets go he’s 99% sure Karkat’s head is going to do another meteor impression on the Formica. He woozily rumbles with another, longer chime.

“That one,” John suggests. “Don’t you hear yourself?” Karkat grunts.

“No, I—“ Then he goes stiff. This time his chiming chokes itself off and Karkat’s teeth are suddenly on display. His eyes dart. For this reason, a prickling nervousness between John’s shoulder blades.

It takes him a minute, and then he feels himself tensing up too.

John’s eyes slide away from Karkat’s face. There’s Jade, continuing to obliviously make her animal crackers do battle. There’s Dave, with ironic straws up his nose. Rose sleeps in. And there’s every troll at the table frozen in place like giant matryoshka dolls. _Staring_.

John looks at Karkat, in case Karkat has sprouted pincers or something.

No?

When John chances a second look, Terezi’s hand comes off of the bench and she delicately rakes her claws into the top of the table. Strips of wood arch out of her claws. John really does not blame Karkat for starting to growl. Did _Kanaya_ just snarl at him?  
  
“Um,” John says, because this is a functional placeholder for _WHAT???_

Karkat slaps John’s hands away and stumbles back from the table. John stays still, because he’s not sure if Karkat is backing away from him too. Karkat looks really scared.

“KK,” Sollux says, and whoa there, buddy, that is not a friendly voice! John raises his eyebrows. Sollux has his head bent like he’s trying to look away from Karkat and not succeeding. “KK, _what_ —?”  
  
“I,” Karkat says. He seems like he’s trying to inch towards the door.

“Okay. Everybody just calm down for a second?” Jade says, which John believes would be an excellent plan. Followed by explanations. There’s another one of those quiet little chimes and John sees Karkat _flatten himself to the wall._

He smells the ozone before he even knows to react. Sollux goes over the table with a fist of wind knocked into his gut, and his psiionics short out in an impressive explosion—not two feet in front of Karkat, who ducks like he was _actually_ expecting that? Seriously: WHAT? Kanaya stands, which no, she should not be doing! Sollux apparently takes John looking elsewhere as an invitation to charge at Karkat. John has his hammer equipped out of a complete lack of other options.

Dave is suddenly there. Sollux doesn’t even seem to notice when Dave pushes him back. None of them do. The room is filled with the growls of pissed-off trolls.

As John looks around in shock, Jade is wrestling Terezi flat against the table, and John threw another windy attack, apparently, keeping Kanaya seated at the table. Their eyes glow, they’re snarling, and Karkat isn’t holding onto the wall anymore.

The tendons in his neck stand out. All teeth, eyes unfocused. He pulls out a growl to match theirs. He looks, horrifically, like he’s trying to smile.

“COME AT ME, SHITLUMPS!” Karkat snarls, lurching a step forward. “LET’S FUCKING GO. IF YOU THINK YOU CAN—“ He sways, going abruptly silent as Sollux yanks against Dave’s grip hard enough to make them both swear. Karkat lists to the side. John’s eyebrows are up to his hairline. His fists are full of wind and he doesn’t know who to throw it at.

“Karkat?” He says carefully.

Kanaya echoes Karkat’s name, but it’s bad the way she says it.

And then they’re all doing it. All the trolls, barking his name over and over. It makes a good reminder that they are not human, because they certainly do not sound it right now. And Karkat stumbles like he’s trying to get away from the chanting. From the look in his eyes, John anticipates troll barf everywhere. Karkat hiccups again, and his pupils contract. Like, noticeably. A _lot_. Barely a pinprick is left and it’s gut-clenchingly close to empty white.

He bursts into tears.

Terezi is the one who howls over the roars of furious trolls and the crushingly loud sounds of Karkat sobbing, “John, get him _out_ of here!”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is long and breaks my chapter length rules but I could find no decent place to break it at.
> 
> At least I am not hoarding this writing for several months to improve upon it. Depression is a great time for me to actually post things! REVEL, MY READERS. REVEL IN THE DARKNESS.
> 
> Anyway, it's cute.

Karkat, John discovers, runs really fast when he’s sick or—or… geez, John still has no idea what just happened. He’s tried pestering Dave and Jade, but they aren’t responding. John assumes this is because they are taking care of massively freaked out troll buddies.   
  
Like John is supposed to be doing with Karkat, who bolted not two steps out the door and is using the labyrinthine passages of the meteor to his advantage. Karkat is such an _idiot_. John has no idea where he went. Jade could just start shrinking stuff and she’d find Karkat in no time and Dave could use the time thing—Rose would just instantly know—but John’s ability to fly around and blow open doors is not extremely helpful.   
  
The last John saw of Karkat was tears and panic, and just remembering makes his stomach wrench. He keeps looking.   
  
He’s been at it for a few hours when his pesterchum goes off. He fumbles it open, hoping for a Karkat’s memo to complain them all into submission and make sense of stuff. Instead, it’s Kanaya. John sort of feels like this is a trap before Jade tells him to just get his butt over there. Whatever weirdness may be going on here, arguing with his ectosister has consequences. John gets his butt over there. The other three humans are already present.   
  
“She’s gonna explain what the deal with breakfast was,” Jade whispers to John.   
  
“…Do trolls maybe have an issue with sick people?” John whispers back. He knows enough about Alternia to want to pile Karkat under quilts and alchemize all the chicken noodle soup this meteor can hold.   
  
“He’s not sick.” John sort of jumps at Kanaya’s voice. She’s not doing the creepy shouting thing, but John still needs to find Karkat _rightnow_. Kanaya folds her hands in front of her skirt. “…Karkat is going through a difficult time.” John and Jade both bounce their knees impatiently. This is more officially a press conference than any of Karkat’s memos have ever accomplished, John thinks a little hysterically. He wants to laugh at them, but he just watched his friend have some kind of messy breakdown this morning and he wants to know _why_.   
  
‘Difficult time’ is insufficient.   
  
“His horns are molting,” Kanaya finally explains. “I did not get a close look this morning, but I believe he has lost his protective chitin shell and that was the source of any… emotional instability.”   
  
“Or,” John puts in, “It could maybe have been you guys suddenly going all the demonic possession on him!” There’s a long stretch of silence. John didn’t mean for his voice to come out that hard.   
  
“Kanaya, you mentioned to me that until he grows a new layer of protective chitin, it’s almost as though Karkat has lost a portion of skin?” Rose puts in gently. “Would you please elaborate?”   
  
“…The molting process can be strenuous,” Kanaya answers quietly. “And I believe—you have each discovered touching a troll’s horns is taboo?”   
  
Yep. Karkat’s horns are not to be treated as motorcycle handlebars unless John wants a black eye. Some lessons are hard-learned. He takes a breath and tries to stop glaring.   
  
“Horns can have very potent effects,” Kanaya continues. “Without protective chitin, a strong breeze will be able to affect Karkat’s hormones in a drastic way, in addition to the pain, which is liable to be severe. He’s been overdue for his molt as well—“ She shakes her head. "Normally a troll would withdraw from society during such a… delicate time, and receive care from their lusus alone. Obviously that is not possible.”   
  
It is only Jade grabbing the bottom of his shirt that keeps John from rocketing away in search of Karkat, who really, really does not need to be alone right now. He’s left floating a few inches off the ground.   
  
Oh no, oh no. Karkat. _Buddy_.   
  
Kanaya looks at John. “He will have withdrawn to safety by now.” She takes a step forward, and her tone is horribly beseeching. “Please understand, that as intolerable as our behavior may have seemed, it was unavoidable.” John blinks. “We are aware of Karkat’s mutations,” her smile turns bitter, “That does not mean we can control our instincts towards them.”   
  
“So, it’s kind of like what Dave does around spiders?” Jade suggests innocently. Dave and John both shoot her an evil look. Karkat is not a spider. He’s _Karkat_.   
  
“We must _all_ leave him alone,” Kanaya says sorrowfully. “He will see everyone as a threat right now, John, and that makes him dangerous. Molting is something Karkat must work through alone.  Please promise me that you won't seek him out any further.”   
  
  
\----  
  
Everyone actually agrees to this, so John slaps on his sweetest smile and nods right along. Uh-huh. Sure. You got it. Best thing for him.   
  
As if. Karkat already thinks the world is out to get him. John is not contributing to that. The minute he’s out of here, he’s going to canvas the meteor until he finds his troll buddy, and he’s going to do whatever it takes to help Karkat get better.   
  
Besides, according to Kanaya, the timeframe estimate is two weeks. _Two weeks!_ Of no Karkat? What a joke.   
  
\----  
  
By the time John finds Karkat again, it’s late afternoon. Karkat turns out to have locked himself in what is probably the most obscure bathroom on this meteor. John’s last image of Karkat is still of him baring his teeth and sobbing while every troll in attendance tries to gut him. This is not the time for a Karkat vacation. So he pulls a windy thing on the lock and finds his favorite troll in the bathtub, fully clothed, and steaming.   
  
Whoa. Hot water, huh? Fuck.   
  
Karkat growls as John floats in—drags his eyes open—and growls again, but his head falls back in relief (possibly despair, but John decides it’s relief for his own convenience). His eyes are glazed and he doesn’t look at all okay.   
  
“Hey there, Karkat,” John whispers, padding nearer. “How are you feeling?”  
  
“Like death shat out twice over,” Karkat’s eyes close. “You don’t have to tiptoe, asshole. Noise won’t do anything to me, and your stupidity is painful to observe.”   
  
Hearing him actually form words is a relief. He’s cranky and lucid, and that in and of itself makes John relax enough to finally get out of the air. He hasn’t been able to touch down since the Kanaya Memo.   
  
_“So that’s why you attacked him? Because he’s molting, and he’s a mutant?”_  
  
 _“No. We attacked him because he purred.”_  
  
 _“That ‘pring-pling’ sound?” Dave scratched an ear. “That didn’t really sound like any kind of purr I’ve heard.”_  
  
 _Kanaya looked down._  
  
 _“No. It does not.”_  
  
“Oh.” John brightens a little bit. “I thought you might have a headache, so I was trying to keep it down!”   
  
“I do have a headache,” Karkat corrects. “But it does not give a fuck about how annoying your voice is—it will continue to split gaping chasms through my thinkpan regardless. Congratulations, John, you do not rank my increased suffering.”   
  
His voice comes out strangled. John thinks he’s trying not to pant.   
  
The really hard part of wearing this smile in front of Karkat and trying to pretend that things are normal is the fact that Karkat’s last view of everyone was them attacking and he doesn’t even _ask_. He already knows that if he ever makes his happy little chimes, his friends have to kill him. And the one time he can’t help it, because his horns are being dumb, he has to go hurt by himself.  All because Karkat was born making the wrong cute noises.  
  
Yeah, to be honest, nothing is keeping John away from Karkat right now.  
  
John sits on the floor by the tub. “That sucks.”

“You have no idea,” Karkat grunts after a moment, voice almost light. His eyes slit open, meeting John’s again. His pupils are too big for the lighting. John winces before Karkat closes them again. “Splendid. You have now reassured yourself that my vomit-encrusted exterior is in fact still capable of basic life support functions, now will you please leave me alone to continue ruing that fact?”   
  
John leans forward a little, bumping a knee against the side of the tub. “But I’m making you feel better, aren’t I?”   
  
Karkat snuffles, sinking lower into the water. His sweater floats. It makes him look deceptively fluffy (Karkat is actually rather difficult to snuggle and he does not cooperate at all. Naturally, he hates hugs). “There’s no such thing as better. There is only the tenuously fragile position of ‘not worse’ and it’s sure to change in a minute.”   
  
Which means yes, he likes the fact that John is here and is being stubborn on a matter of principle. Karkat gets stubborn about the weirdest things, but that’s okay because so does John and they’re good for out-stubborning each other in dire straits.

John looks over Karkat’s horns. The usually smooth surface is riddled with cracks and has strips of what looked like half-melted cheese hanging off of it. “So your horns are finally growing, huh?”

“They’d fucking better,” Karkat grunts. “I’m not going through this shit and coming out with another pair of pathetic nubs. The universe can kiss my ass. I want at least an _inch_.” His tone implies that this would be very impressive. John imagines Karkat’s nubby little horns an inch longer and means his grin a little bit more. Aww. Cute image.

“So what is the bathtub doing for you anyway?” John asks as the silence stretched. Karkat huffs, rolling his eyes, head tipping back towards John.

“The steam helps, the heat helps, and when I can manage to stand the excruciating discomfort, I can dip the damn things under and it at least stops them from itching so bad. Any more questions? Because I’m just loving discussing my health status with you, Egbert. It is making my entire quarter-sweep.”

John does have questions and he can’t exactly ask Kanaya—but there’s no way to get them out. As exhausted as Karkat looks, his neck and shoulders are tensed into bricks, and all the muscles in his face are pulled tight. John’s throat constricts.

He glances at the flaking horns again and then asks tentatively, “Can I maybe… help? Like, would it be so bad if someone just poured water over them?”

That sure makes Karkat’s eyes open in a hurry. John stares back, smiling like he did not notice Karkat feigning electrocution. He counts the reddish veins lining the yellowish sclera of the troll’s eyes.   

“I guess… that might not be entirely horrible,” Karkat says warily. John’s grin widens, and as he shifts forward, Karkat tenses up. “ _Slowly_ ,” he says, in his ‘you idiot’ tone, which is probably as fond as Karkat gets. John complies, cupping a handful of water—ouch, wow, that’s hot—and carefully lifting it upwards. Karkat flinches and John’s heart goes all wibbly-wobbly with sympathy. He trickles just a little down the horn closest to him. Karkat flinches again and John feels like he’s kicking a puppy—“Hurry up,” Karkat orders, voice strained, and John lets him call it, spreading his fingers for water to soak down the chitin.

Karkat is panting. Oh man, John feels like he is being so mean.

“Do the other one,” Karkat chokes through gritted teeth. John falters.

“Are you sure? That looked like it—“

“Do it,” Karkat interrupts him, and leans his head almost over the edge of the tub, damp hair curling down over his eyes, horns aimed at John like the sights of a gun. John gathers more water reluctantly. Karkat hisses as John lets it run over his horn. He doesn’t move, just hangs in front of John with water dripping down his nose and his eyes shut. John panics silently until Karkat tips himself back into the water with a splash.

His voice comes out like it has lead weights attached. “Oh Jegus _Christ_ , that’s better.”

John can’t resist teasing, “I thought there was no such thing as better?”

“Screw you,” Karkat answers, slumping fully against the back of the tub. The muscles around his eyes have softened, leaving him looking half-asleep. “If that is your hideously sad attempt to fish for my thanks, you’re not getting shit. You gave me thirty fucking minutes of maybe not entirely wanting to tear my cartilage nub out, that is a fly’s fart in the grand scheme of things, and I’m not telling you jack.”

“You’re welcome,” John says, grinning. Karkat makes grouchy noises to him. He’s curling up in the water, limbs drawing into a tiny, misshapen black lump of Karkat. John knows what that means. Variants to the fetal position are Karkat’s response to the slightest hint of relaxation. Is that a faint pop-click of his troll skeleton that John hears? Oho.

John's smile feels a lot less like suffocating all of a sudden.

“You know, I could go get my laptop and we could watch some movies,” John suggests as a mildly relaxed Karclump inches back towards John’s edge of the tub. “And you could tell me when your horns were bothering you again, and. You know. I can do the water thing.”

“Can’t,” Karkat mutters, furrowing his brow. “The glare hurts my eyes.” Yeah, John can understand that, considering how wide Karkat’s pupils are gaping again. Troll eyes normally remind him of a jungle cat’s or something, with slit pupils and glaring orange, and right now they’re so dilated Karkat looks nearly human.

“Then why do you have the lights on?” John asks, not really arguing, just puzzled.

“In case idiots like you show up and try to kill me.” Karkat bares his teeth at John’s expression. “It’s not a logic thing, brain parade. I’m vulnerable as fuck right now, and I don’t even have my lusus for protection. My only chance at survival is to be fully alert and notice my enemies before they notice me.”

It’s a logic thing a little bit, John thinks sadly. He reflects on Karkat’s warbling little growl from the bathtub and the fact that he managed to open his eyes only once John was right on top of him. His heart goes a little goopy. Karkat is kind of helpless isn’t he? “Uh.” Karkat’s expression dares him to finish that thought. John clears his throat. “But you know, Karkat, I could stay here and umm. Look out for enemies. And you could rest?”

The look Karkat is giving him. You’d think John had suggested they take turns shooting spitballs at Lord English.

“Egbert, read my lips. You. Are not. My motherfucking _lusus_ ,” Karkat’s tone is growly enough to make John scowl back.

“No, I’m just your best friend.” Karkat grimaces, lips pulling back from his teeth. “Nope, don’t deny it, buster, you know it’s true! You and me, we’re palhonchos for life.” John pokes Karkat’s soaked shoulder. His fingers then colonize the area virulently, giving a little squeeze of camaraderie. Yes, suck it up, Karkat. You cannot deny this FRIENDSHIP. It is the lifeblood in your veins and you know it.

Karkat looks down at the hand resting on him as if he will protest. He does not protest. John adds, “Friends help friends out when they’re in a tight spot, dumbdumb. If my, uh, human… chugnodes started shedding, I know you’d have my back too.”

“You have chugnodes?” Karkat looks back up at John’s face, resigning himself to all the friendship that was going on here. He flicks an ear after a moment. “…The fuck is a chugnode?”

“They’re like these big, scary _things_ ,” John widens his eyes at Karkat. “And wow. All the shedding. It can get pretty gnarly, Karkat. I wouldn’t want to be left all alone when.” He calculates the moment, and lets his eyes drop, sucking in a loud breath. “…When my time comes.”

“Shit,” says Karkat softly, because in all the time he has known John he has not grown any less gullible. John keeps his face downturned. Even Karkat would probably suspect something with John’s shit-eating grin. “I… god, Egbert. I had no idea there was such… suffering in your species.” Something damp whacks into John’s shoulder, like an aggressive squid. John kind of gets the feeling Karkat is going for a comforting pat, though, so he looks up and gives the troll a smile.

“Do you have my back, Karkat?” He asks seriously. He squeezes Karkat’s shoulder.

“Of course I fucking have your misshapen human spinal column,” Karkat growls, eyes narrowed. “What kind of shithead do you take me for? You’re going to get through this chugnode shedding with flying colors, do you understand? And then you can grovel at my feet for being the best fucking hatefriend ever to grace your puny fleshbag with my attention.”

“Great!” John beams, patting Karkat’s shoulder with rapid happiness. “Then you just relax while I get the lights for you.” Karkat looks briefly confused, but 90% of winning arguments with Karkat is acting quickly, while he still isn’t sure what’s just happened. John uses the wind to flip the light switch and they are both swamped in darkness.

“Uh,” Karkat says, sounding awkward enough that John can practically see the grouchy scowl in front of him. “Human night vision is worse than ours. How exactly are you planning to entertain yourself for the next few hours, after which you will inevitably leave me to my gristly fate?”

John rolls his eyes. Wow, Karkat. “Oh, I dunno! I was thinking we could just talk?”

Karkat scoffs. “Oh yes, let me never doubt how desirable that must be for all involved.”

Water sloshes. It’s not quite enough to cover up another soft series of pops from Karkat as his skeleton does the thing, and John grins into the darkness. Sooner or later Karkat is just going to have to get over it and figure out that John likes talking with him.

But for now, it’s time for an exciting opening topic to this conversation! John leans against the side of the tub to ask innocently, “So Karkat, how do buckets work?”

Hehehe, and Karkat is too waterlogged and chilled out to actually take a swing at him, even. All kinds of success. John is a genius.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who needs Johnkat fluff? Show of hands?
> 
> At your friggin' service, my friends.

After five hours of talking until his throat keeps sticking, Karkat has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is no physical discomfort too great it can prevent ranting monologues about perfectly normal things. John gets all of Karkat’s bones to pop back out of military formation, and periodically pours water on Karkat’s head (which is kind of interesting in the dark and all, but it works okay if John puts a hand on top of Karkat’s hair head for a roadmap). John refills the tub so it stays hot enough to offer some relief (scalding; trolls are made of magma and sunburns), and listens to Karkat buzz and hiccup and purr and repeatedly insist that it’s the horns even though John already knows that. Karkat begins to snore softly, hair still clinging to John’s fingers from the last hornbath, John is grinning from ear to ear because he _was_ right. This is so much better than leaving Karkat alone.   
  
0000  
  
Karkat has, apparently, prepared ‘emergency supplies.’ These, John is unimpressed to find out, are about three boxes of saltine crackers and one of those airplane packets of peanuts. John is pretty much entirely sure Karkat has been drinking out of the bathtub faucet.   
  
“It’s fine,” Karkat tries to insist. “I’m not deficient. I have enough nutritional stores built up that I can last for weeks without anything more than supplementary carbohydrates.” He’s giving John a rather wide-eyed look, which hopefully isn't hurting his eyes too much, because Karkat made John turn on the lights when John said he’d go get provisions. This was before Karkat had embarked on the campaign of explaining why he didn’t need to eat real food.   
  
John doesn’t care if Karkat doesn’t want him to leave. “I will be right back,” he assures Karkat. “Just relax.”   
  
“As if I could,” Karkat snaps at him. It’s another horn thing—but whether he means it or not, his growl is making John’s skull rattle. “I have to keep myself completely focused and ready for attack since you are _ditching_ _me_. You are the worst fake lusus! In fact, don’t come back. Leave me the fuck alone.”   
  
John can’t bring himself to make fun of Karkat right now. He didn’t miss the edge of fear in that.   
  
No matter how dumb he’s being. “I’ll lock the door with the windy thing,” he promises. Karkat responds with what sounded kind of like a lion roaring through a couple of sheets of saran wrap. John figures that’s his cue to depart.   
  
He spends a while fiddling with the alchemiter, trying to get it to produce things that will keep for a while and still offer more nutritional content than crackers. He counts the beef jerky as a big win, and is able to enlist Feferi in helping him make trollish cuisine. Their creations all look frankly horrific, but Feferi assures him this stuff is tasty and will be really healthy for a troll “whose horns are glubbing off.” Even if they’re slimy and gross and looked like dirt mixed with brains.   
  
Other trolls are eager to contribute when Feferi explains that John is bringing Karkat meals. Sollux is particularly helpful, and as he fine-tunes the alchemiter he rambles the whole time about how dumb and lame Karkat is and how Sollux hopes his horns grow in crooked. Aradia starts giggling at him. After a moment, John joins in. Sollux gives them both looks like he hopes their horns grow in crooked too.   
  
Around the time The Breakfast Fiasco is explained with the analogy of an off-key piano—except instead of cringing at bluh sounds, when trolls hear an off-key piano, they have to kill it because being an off-key piano is very threatening to trollkind—John is beginning to think that strategic earplugs are the answer.   
  
Sometimes John questions whether Alternia is actually an incredibly elaborate and ridiculous prank.   
  
On that note: chugnodes. John needs to find Dave if they’re going to see how long they can keep Karkat convinced—and then Nepeta asks, “I haven’t see you around furr a while, John! Where have you been, when you’re not bringing Karkitty his meals?”  
  
John, having been educated on the shipping wall and what it means when he sees one glasses-wearing stick figure holding hands with another, is somewhat leery of answering this. But it’s pretty hard to dislike Nepeta—she’s super nice and completely awesome at card tricks—so he just goes with the truth. “Just hanging out with him. You know, cause he’s feeling crappy and stuff.”   
  
After a moment John looks up from captchaloguing a bag of what appeared to be oranges with fuzzy pink spider legs, and groans. “Oh come on, guys. Do we really have to do the silent staring at the alien routine, or can you just tell me what weird troll law I broke and move on? I promise I actually _asked_ if he wanted me there!”   
  
“No, no, no!” Nepeta says quickly, waving a hand. “I’m just—surprised! Karkitty letting someone stay with him? I, um, didn’t expect that!”   
  
“Well, it’s not like he’s a troll,” Sollux says, growing bored with staring at John and turning back the alchemiter. “He can handle the purring. Plus, humans are squishier than us.”   
  
“Hey,” John grumbles. He takes offense at that. He is not _squishy_. He’s pretty badass, okay?   
  
Aradia pipes up from behind him. “John, have you ever murdered someone for fun?”   
  
John turns for the sole purpose of silently staring at the alien.   
  
“There you go!” She chirps, putting her hands behind her back innocently. “Squishy. I for one think it’s really nice that Karkat can rely on you!”  
  
Yeah, John is still hung up on the whole murdering for fun thing. What.   
  
Feferi sidles up to whisper to him, “We don’t usually do it or anyfin. It’s just. Impulses, you know?”   
  
“Okay,” John says slowly, inching away from the assemblage. “That’s, uh. I think I’ve got enough food for now, so I’m just gonna go…” Nepeta waves to him cheerily. Jeez, trolls are weird. John waves back.  
  
“Don’t forget to tell KK you have grubsnaps!” Sollux shouts after him.   
  
0000  
  
John can hear Karkat snarling through the bathroom door as he jiggles the lock back out of place. This growlfussing, John decides, is really dumb. He’s the only windy god tier around, and the lock wouldn’t be opening all on its own. He walks in and finds Karkat hanging over the edge of the tub, looking like the world’s wettest cat. He appears to be… defiantly eating saltines.   
  
Wow.   
  
“So what are grubsnaps?” John asks. Both ears flick up and Karkat sits up in a hurry. John indulgently concedes that Karkat is adorable even when he’s being dumb—and look, adorable is adorable. You can find your friends adorable when it’s all objective and stuff—and together they sift through a whole bunch of oozing, gelatinous substances that John wouldn’t inflict on prisoners of war, but that make Karkat produce increasingly squeaky noises of enthusiasm. They aren’t able to find the grubsnaps fast enough, because John looks up to see weird spider legs twitching from between Karkat’s lips and the troll’s eyes literally rolling up in the back of his head.   
  
It’s… almost enough to… make John _think_ …   
  
He looks at the orangespiders.   
  
Hm.   
  
…No, he’ll stick with beef jerky and applesauce. He pops a strip of meat into his mouth and chews. Hmmmyumyumyum, delicious not-hairy goodness.   
  
When they finish eating and John makes Karkat drink something that has a resealable cap, he recaptchalogues the remains of their feast and flops against the side of the bathtub. “Want me to turn the lights off now?” He asks. Karkat blinks lazily over at him. He’s been chime-purring so thickly it sounds like the room is full of softly tinkling bells, and if John suspects it’s not entirely the horns this time, well, he’s simply too smart to comment on it.   
  
Heheh, Karkat looks like such a dope right now. John pokes him between the eyes, getting another lazy blink. “You’re staying?” Karkat asks. “…Again?”   
  
John snorts. “Duh, Karkat! What, did you think this was all some clever plan to abandon you in your hour of need?” Karkat makes a face. John makes a face right back at him. “Oh my god, you did, didn’t you? Wow.” He waves a hand and darkness descends. “You’re so duuuumb! Maybe I should leave after all.”   
  
“What’s stopping you?” Karkat shoots back.   
  
“My incredible good nature,” John mutters flatly. “And also the fact that maybe hanging out with you is not the incredible hardship you seem to think it is?”  
  
Karkat is quiet, and when he does speak up his voice comes out small. “…My horns itch like fuck.”   
  
John laughs, feeling along the bathtub edge to find Karkat’s chin and spider-crawling up it to the top of his head with one hand while the other scoops up some fresh water. Karkat growls at him and pretends to snap at his fingers. John scritches the top of Karkat’s head. The sound Karkat chokes on suggests deep, existential despair. He’s back to purring by the time John has bathed his horns.  
  
“So where did we leave off, anyway?”   
  
“Debating who would win the metaphorical showdown of immense stupidity: Strider’s “bro” or Godzilla.”   
  
“Oh yeah,” John settles back against the tub. “I’m still banking on Mr. Strider, by the way.”   
  
“Are you kidding me?” Karkat bursts out. “After the extensive theoretical blow-by-blow where I proved beyond a shadow of logical doubt that Godzilla would eat his face off? Do you have grubleeches in your ears or what?!”   
  
He sounds so delighted to have something to yell about again. John grins into the dark and unleashes his secret weapon.   
  
“Troll Godzilla, maybe. Human Godzilla would definitely lose.”   
  
“Oh come _on_ ,” Karkat groans, and John can feel him practically vibrating with excitement.   
  
0000  
  
Karkat shakes him awake a lot nicer than you’d think, given that he’s Karkat. John grumbles.   
  
“Egbert. Don’t give me that shit, I know you’re awake.”  
  
“Do I have to be?” John whines. He’s sitting up, though. He remembers talking to Karkat and yawning, and yawning, and _yawning_ …   
  
“If you’re tired enough to pass out in the middle of braying your obnoxious laughter, you’re useless to me.” John grins. Whenever Karkat tries to be nice, he sounds pretty much twice as grumpy. “Come on, you useless nutloaf, get up. Go back to your coon, or whatever the fuck you humans call it.”   
  
“’Nutloaf’,” John giggles.   
  
“Go AWAY,” Karkat snaps at him. His shove tips John backwards and nearly makes him smack his head on the floor. “I survived on my own before, I think I can handle eight hours without you snoring at me.” John grumbles, picking himself up off the floor. He blunders to the exit in the dark because he’s basically forgotten that light switches exist and as he manages to get it open, Karkat mutters at him, “And you’d better fucking come back.”   
  
John turns and beams at Karkat. With the light filtering through, he can see a little bit of Karkat’s silhouette, and it looks, John thinks, pretty damn relaxed. “Okay,” he says happily, and then proceeds to trip into a wall. Karkat sighs.   
  
“Turn the light on before you leave, idiot.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ROLL CREDITS!  
> If you get that reference, you get a Karkat-shaped cookie. Shh, don't question it; that is definitely Karkat-shaped.
> 
> (I find this chapter entirely too precious.)

John sleeps really well, has a dream about spiderfruits, and comes back to Karkat’s room to hear… very strange noises.   
  
Now at this point it would be ridiculous to question strange troll noises; he’s heard so many variants on the possibilities of vocal organs (and may or may not have practiced trying to mimic them himself, to little success) that John rolls with the punches really well. He also knows that Karkat is having a tough time right now controlling his grumbles—case and point, there has been _so much_ Karkat purring in the past 24 hours. So much. John feels a little guilty for liking it as much as he did.   
  
However, the sounds John hears at the moment made him think of nothing so much as someone trying to swallow their own tongue. Visions of unvanquished orangespiders in his mind, he flings open the door to rescue his buddy and finds Karkat…   
  
Is he trying to gore the bathtub with his horns? Also, _what?_ Karkat groans another half-choked, distressed noise, and continues to shove his head against the side of the tub. John watches, very concerned and unsure of how best to express this concern without getting drop-kicked once Karkat realizes someone is watching him.    
  
A chunk of horn snaps off, which makes John go numb with horror.  Then Karkat gasps and drops his head back down again, a sickly purr coming out of his throat. John dubiously eyes the chunk of yellow chitin in the water. It bobs to Karkat’s knee and catches there.   
  
Karkat hisses after a moment’s rest, arching his head back to drag his horns against the tub, and John forgets himself.   
  
“Why don’t you do that with your hands?” If Karkat is trying to break off the peeling chunks of dead horn gunk, why make the bathtub suffer for it? It looks like it would be a lot easier to peel off by hand than to keep smacking his head into the side of the tub.   
  
Karkat opens one eye, and gives John this look like he’s trying to decide whether or not he’s going to be angry about John seeing all this. John puts his hands behind his back and tries to look as unassumingly harmless as possible. It seems to work, because Karkat closes his eyes again and grunts. “Claws.”   
  
“What?” John figures his presence has been forgiven and approaches. Up close, he can see that Karkat is prickling all over with tension and seems to have bitten through his lip a few times. John would be concerned, but he’s seen Karkat do that mid-rant on more than one occasion. Karkat’s neck and jaw look like they’ve been screwed tight enough to function as a suitable replacement for Zillyhoo, though, and the muscles around his eyes keep jumping. He looks like shit.   
  
“Claws,” Karkat repeats sharply, and from here, John can see that his teeth are gritted. “They’ll snag or I’ll just start gouging—fuck!” He jerks his head away from the bathtub, chest heaving. For a moment Karkat is deathly silent, and then he starts hissing air out between his teeth in that universal signal of ‘I want to cuss so bad right now, but I can’t find the words with which to express OW to a suitable degree.’ He doesn’t continue explaining, just gives a shivering little whine. When Karkat starts to tip his head back towards the wall, John moves without really thinking.   
  
Karkat pretty much screams air at John—lungs unload all at once, but without a sound—and he goes completely still as John’s fingers gingerly prod at the chitin—wow, it’s way rougher than it always looks, but maybe that’s because it’s molting? John’s never touched troll horn for longer than it takes Karkat to take a swing his fist. There’s a pretty sizable strip down the side that sort of wobbles when John touches it, and he’s able to peel it—and a big chunk underneath it—off. Karkat starts breathing again at some point, and grabs John’s wrist.   
  
“No,” the troll pants at him, even though his eyes are half-focused and he isn’t making any kind of ‘ouch’ noises. “Stop.”   
  
Immediately John’s hands drop away. “I thought I was helping,” John says tentatively, even though Karkat isn’t so much as making a face at him—just holding still where he’d been before, looking like he’s about to either fall asleep or throw up all over the floor). “No claws and… Sorry if that hurt?”  
  
“Didn’t hurt,” Karkat says after a pause. He shakes his head lightly, eyes closing. “…Which is pretty fucking amazing since these things are apparently made of fire ants and nightmares. I take it fucking back. I don’t want another inch of horror. I want them to fall _off_ —“ His voice actually cracks. Oh god, John feels for him so bad right now. All ouch, ouch, ouch in the chest compartment.   
  
John is about to suggest that Karkat let John pour water on them—although he isn’t sure how helpful that will be; this close, he can see that Karkat’s horns have cracked overnight in several places. John feels horrible about having left. He should have just slept in here and then Karkat could have woken him up when he needed the water thing. Maybe it would have helped.   
  
Karkat interjects before John can talk himself into trying to get another strip off for him, voice miserable. “No, stop it, you sick fucking freak. You do not touch others _there_ unless you are trying to investigate the equivalents of intergalactic crotch-groping.” Before John can say anything, Karkat shoots him a look, “And yes, you idiot, it is a sex thing. No homo those hands back to your side of the bathtub.”   
  
John obligingly, and gently, pokes Karkat’s forehead. “You guys let your lususes do sex things to you?” He’s pretty sure this is not the case, but it’s fun to watch Karkat’s face contort.   
  
“Lusii,” Karkat corrects through his teeth, eyes narrowed to slits. Oh, his voice is getting nasty again. John removes his hands, leery of the horn-induced murderfeelings. “And of course we fucking don’t. It’s about as glorious as them changing our diapers, but for the last time John, you are not a sentient albino crab the size of a human rhinoceros— _you are not my fucking lusus_ —and now it is time for you to calm your human jets.”  
  
John gives Karkat’s horns a dubious look. “…They don’t look like a sex thing.”   
  
“That is because your species is hideously underdeveloped and should have been culled at the drawing board,” Karkat responds, before biting his lip and whimpering. A tremor goes down his shoulders. John sighs.   
  
“Oh come on, Karkat. It wouldn’t be a sex thing for me at all, and I really don’t think it is for you right now either! It looks like it hurts. I promise I won’t tell anyone, so will you just let me help?”   
  
Karkat can look appalled all he wants. That does not change the fact that John is right. He inches closer again. “All I’d have to do is peel the dead stuff off, right? That’s not even hard. I bet I could get it done really quickly and then you’d feel better and we wouldn’t have to keep talking about this.”   
  
“So basically you’re asking permission to sort of grope my headnubs while they’re extra-disgusting and I can’t do shit about it,” Karkat observes sourly. “Is that what is happening here?”   
  
John makes a face back at him. “Now you’re just making it weird on purpose.”   
  
“By all means,” Karkat huffs, dropping his forehead onto the lip of the bathtub. “Show me exactly how fucking not weird this is, John. Be a human ‘pal’.”  
  
John quirks an eyebrow at the top of the troll’s head, but that’s probably all the invitation he’s going to get. Instead of arguing further, he bends over the displayed horns, trying to figure out where would be good to start—until Karkat makes another choked-up noise of pain and John just runs his fingers down one, locating a crack deep and loose enough to peel back. But maybe peeling isn’t the right word—John’s first attempt breaks off a chunk of horn so big John flinches—is there even anything left underneath? Karkat sighs out a sound of desperate relief, though. So John carefully digs his fingers into the edge of the crater he’s made.   
  
Throughout the whole process of stripping down both horns, Karkat flinches only once, and it isn’t because John tore off something he shouldn’t have; it’s because the dark, glossy horns underneath the dead layer are apparently every bit as sensitive as Kanaya had warned. A chunk of horn slipped through John’s fingers and Karkat jumped like he’d been stepped on. But that was his only complaint. When Karkat leans back, his expression is euphoric.  
  
“Better?” John asks, hiding a smile.   
  
And holy shit, the removed chitin is everywhere. There’s practically enough to build another troll.   
  
“Oh god yes,” Karkat moans, reaching up like he’s going to feel them before he thinks the better of it. He bites his lip at John, who smiles back automatically. Whatever it is, he’s fine with helping if Karkat will just ask. “Can you maybe.” Karkat’s hands falter up again, stalling before they reach their destination. “Touch them some?”   
  
“Wouldn’t that hurt?” John asks, eyebrows going up.   
  
“Not if you’re gentle,” Karkat replies just a little too fast. John watches him wince. He has to bite his lip trying not to giggle. “Oh fuck you, Egbert. They need to get sensitized somehow, and they’re so fucking sore right now they feel like one big blister. If you don’t have the urge to continue molesting your friends, I guess you don’t have to—“   
  
Aww, cute noise. John runs the pad of his thumb over the horn again. “Like this?”  
  
“A little more,” Karkat groans, shivering. “…Firm? Please?” John can do that. Karkat seems to lose his breath. He lets out a tiny moan of relief. “Okay. John, you… don’t suck at this as much as you could.”   
  
“Happy to help,” John responds, now petting both horns carefully. Karkat’s face is slack and his eyelids are fluttering. Hehehe, he looks like _such_ an idiot. The new chitin John touches is way smoother than the dead layer; like glass, but with some kind of velvety edge. They feel just as warm as Karkat’s skin, and John can feel a pulse at their base. They are alive, seriously?! Aliens are so weird and cool and gross. Within two seconds, Karkat is purring like he has a mouthful of syrup, all slurred and sticky reverberation. John ignores it.  
  
“Why are you being so nice?” Karkat demands once John has gotten used to it—it isn’t so weird, really. Sure, the purring is kind of funny, but John’s participation here is more or less just acting like he’s finger painting. And it makes Karkat look about 1000% times less miserable. So worth it. “You’re listening to me. That is fucking weird.”   
  
John laughs at his friend, petting down to the horn base again. They really do come straight out of Karkat’s skull. Weird! “Uh, because you’re sick? You always indulge a sick person.” He releases one of the horns for a moment to pat Karkat’s fluffy—well, usually fluffy; this whole ordeal has left Karkat sweaty and weirdly crusty—hair. Song lyrics fit the situation clearly. “Anyway you want it, that’s the way you—“   
  
“I will kill you and feed your carcass to the horrorterrors.” But Karkat’s expression is dopily soft. John knows his own expression is too. He’s been able to help Karkat feel better. The troll gives John a kind of weird (like a basket of squirmy puppies; and nope, John is not changing his analogy) look before announcing, “Damn… Tense all over.” He shifts. He’s giving John a sideways look. “Back hurts. And I’m sick.”  
  
“Okay?” John snorts at him, twirling a finger in front of Karkat’s nose. The troll’s eyes are going wide and he isn’t budging. “Uh, dude? Turn around.” Karkat just blinks at him. John huffs. “Karkat, do you want a back rub or not?”   
  
“Holy shit,” squeaks the troll, and splashes about half the water out of his tub in his haste to turn around.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY GUYS so the next chapter is gonna be a drag to write because I have to do a tone shift in a pretty big way. Do not expect promptness.
> 
> On the upside, we have a ton of oneshots that I should be able to post pretty soon! They are extremely Johnkat, so much John and Kat, very dorks in love, wow.
> 
> And in the interests of this fic, please know that while this chapter sucks (no really, it does; I required it for Plot Reasons but very little actually happens), the next one should actually be pretty sweet.

Around noon in John’s first day of troll servitude, Karkat starts making bubbles. He looks pretty embarrassed about it too (so many fart jokes, so little time). This isn’t one of the bad sick things, though—the meteor’s resident grouch is just producing what looks like sea foam, except pinkish. Karkat yells at John for the first ten minutes of John scooping up the Karkat-foam and building things with it, but then he lapses into grudging silence and eventually does something to John’s face that John sorely regrets not having a mirror for, because he’s pretty sure he is now sporting a dapper moustache. He retaliates by trying to build a ZZ top beard on Karkat, but Karkat is not feeling cooperative and they get into a splash fight.   
  
The bathroom is somewhat worse for wear, but the fact that Karkat is moving around is heartening. The back rub seemed to do him some good. He’s no longer flinching every time he shifts.   
  
He demands another backrub after the splash fight, which he claims is his prize of victory (ha, he has won nothing). Karkat keeps leaning his head back as John indulges him, thumping the back of his skull against John’s knuckles or just tangling wet hair with his fingers. He has the dopey expression of someone who has been in a hot bath for too long. He does the chiming thing and nobody has to say anything about it because the corners of Karkat’s mouth are faltering towards a smile and John, well, he never minded the purring to begin with. Obviously.   
  
“What is this stuff, anyway?” John asks post Karkat massage, meaning the bubblefoam. Karkat has draped an arm over the faucet of the tub and his fingers twitch each time the water drips from them, but otherwise he’s a downed troll. He looks very peaceful, like he is meditating over water droplets. It seems an ideal time to continue the line of questioning about pink sea foam, because the first time around all Karkat did was screech and curse out the world for being especially stupid.   
  
Karkat blinks lazily at him. The light from under the door makes his eyes look very shiny in the dark. “Doesn’t matter,” he says, which makes John pout for all of two seconds before he mutters, “Wouldn’t work anyway. You weird fucking alien.”   
  
Which means John absolutely has to know. “Whoa! Were you trying to troll-kill me?”   
  
“No, I was not—“ Karkat breaks off to scowl. “’Troll kill you’? Yes, John, that was a necessary qualifier. It’s not as if you would be any less dead if I was a giant fucking ragebear and I clawed your head off.”  
  
 “I did live in a cave,” Karkat replies, acknowledging that Jade has them both hooked on Monty Python. It is an unhealthy addiction, but oh so delicious. “You know, on Alternia. Big dark hole in the ground. Really cozy.”   
  
John inches closer to the bathtub (rapidly filling up with foam; he will need to provision Karkat with a top hat very soon). “Really?”   
  
A snort. “No, dumbass. I lived in a hive. Which I built.” As John pictures this, Karkat heaves a sigh and adds, without patience, “Whatever you’re imagining, stop that immediately.”   
  
“Okay.” The water splashes. John realizes gradually that Karkat successfully distracted him from the foam topic. It’s impressive, because to John’s knowledge, Karkat’s powers of manipulation do not exist—seriously, he could probably reverse psychology his way through life; he’s just so _bad_ at getting people to do things—and he lets Karkat win because of this. And because Karkat is sick. It’s not nice to bug sick people too much.   
  
He considers Karkat’s lack of manipulative prowess and smiles to himself as he asks, “so, can I mess with your horns again?” because he knows Karkat would never ask. Karkat is quiet for a minute, although John sees him kind of shifting around, nuzzling into the crook of his arm. His horns just so happen to be pointed at John again.   
  
“Go ahead,” Karkat says softly, and is that a note of faintly surprised gratitude John hears? Oh yes. He thinks it is. A shudder goes through his little troll buddy as John touches them, and John is really careful. Karkat strangles the silence at first and his skeleton relaxes audibly before he gives any sign of approval. But then he purrs and stills beneath John’s hand and after a little bit, John realizes that Karkat kind of pushes into the contact a little, like a dog that is particularly intent on petting.  
  
John wonders how often people actually touch Karkat—not just poke him so he flails and shouts—and feels a little sad. Karkat doesn’t like hugs and he doesn’t, you know, just bump shoulders with people or mess up their hair or anything. He withdraws into his allotted space at all times unless he’s shouting and even then, it’s really only his voice that carries. And none of that is bad, necessarily—some people just don’t like touching—but everything from the noises Karkat makes to the way he pushes into John’s palm until John’s fingers sift through his hair says he’s starving for it. Maybe it’s just a horn, thing, though. Maybe Karkat still doesn’t like it.   
  
John really, really wants to give the troll boy a hug anyway. He refrains because he’s pretty sure Karkat will elbow him in the eye if he makes any sudden moves. So he pets the horns and the wet clumps of hair and thinks about how weird it is to be petting your best buddy (and the extra weirdness of not exactly being perturbed by how weird it is). And he totally lets Karkat lecture him on romcom plots. It’s even kind of fun when John realizes that if he makes a few logical leaps, there are parallels to be drawn between those movies and ones where a respectable quantity of things get shot. Inevitably, Karkat gets stuck in the black abyss that is the goofy troll quadrant system, but when he wakes up for a minute, Karkat’s cheek is squashed next to John’s on the tub, and his eyelashes shift with a dream. When John sits up halfway, Karkat sleepily huffs.   
  
Whether or not John then hugs the dozing little troll in the bathtub is entirely left to question, because there were no witnesses and John was already covered in foam anyway.   
  
Karkat’s horns are looking a lot better when they wake up for real—well, John wakes up, anyway. Karkat just kind of rolls around and nearly drowns himself in an effort to ignore John’s prodding. The color looks a little more like what it’s supposed to and they’re not nearly as shiny. John touches them without thinking—they’re not so smooth anymore, but they’re not all bumpy and snaggly either. They’re like (and he has to think for a moment to get the comparison) the old white plaster hallways of John’s middle school. Smooth-ish, but you can feel porous sorts of things and there are weird grooves and shapes in there that John is tracing out of fascination, seeing if they lead anywhere cool. He jumps a little when Karkat’s fingers bump into his, then blinks.   
  
Karkat’s expression is one of intense concentration as he runs the back of his finger down a horn. John freezes, holding his breath and really hoping that doesn’t hurt. Karkat’s horns look a lot better, sure, but that doesn’t mean they’re not painful. Karkat’s face splits into what John immediately assumes is a snarl and he’s ready to get away from the bathtub, thinking Karkat’s horns are making him do the rage thing. His brain makes the connection slowly, following the line of sharp teeth to gray lips and the way his face has to rearrange to make room for one of the biggest grins John has ever seen.   
  
“Fuck yes,” Karkat says with relish, and feels along his other horn. He cackles. “I broke _three inches_.”   
  
He sounds so utterly pleased with himself that John laughs in surprise—Karkat makes a face at him and John’s laugh melts into the big victory smile that comes with Karkat looking happy. Karkat’s eyes crinkle back and there’s a moment where he freezes and John thinks that smile is about to vanish back behind the Great Wall of GrouchyKat, but it doesn’t. Karkat hides it behind his palm for a minute, but it’s still there when he moves his hand.   
  
“Three fucking _inches_ ,” he says again, and John says it back to him, which makes Karkat kind of choke on a humming sound that turns into a protracted, bell-like purr and John doesn’t get it at first, because Karkat doesn’t use his _words_ , but he realizes that Karkat has turned the horns towards him again. He dutifully investigates Karkat’s new claim to mangrit. Karkat’s smile gets a little bigger as he does. John admittedly knows very little about horns that he did not learn this week, but he gives a little whistle and the water splashes—Karkat pushes his hand off.   
  
“Turn on the lights,” he says.  
  
“You sure?” John is getting up anyway—everything is slippery and he’s seriously getting stiff from folding himself into bathtubside position for hours on end, but the windy thing keeps this from being lethal.   
  
“Yeah,” Karkat says. “Gonna get out.”  
  
It takes John a moment to realize that Karkat intends to leave the tub. He’s been a permanent fixture there for so long that—yeah, this is great. John’s heart flops around in his chest. “Thought trolls were supposed to have great night vision,” he teases as he darts to the switch.   
  
“We do,” Karkat immediately protests before breaking off in grimacing blinks as light fills the room. He’s upright. From far away, now that he’s looking, John can tell the difference to his horns. There is something rather dignified about them now.   
  
(They are still adorable little nubs, though.)   
  
After he’s finished blinking, the big grin has been packed away somewhere, but there’s a tilt to one corner of Karkat’s mouth just pleased enough for John to know the light isn’t hurting him. He walks back over for solidarity as Karkat gingerly steps from the tub. “Your species doesn’t.” Karkat shrugs a shoulder. “After all the running your word-hole has been doing lately, you owe me about ten million movies.”   
  
“We can watch some of the weird troll ones too,” John offers generously. Karkat sniffs.   
  
“Damn straight.” He’s wrapping himself up in towels, to a strange effect—it is so weird to see Karkat in anything but dark colors—and when he’s done with that he sits down against the side of the bathtub where John was sitting before. He stares at John until John sits down with him, and Karkat promptly fits a corner of damp towel over his knee. “Blanket,” he explains as he pulls another towel up around his ears (but not, John notices, over the proudly displayed horns). “Movie night.”   
  
“Right.” It is entirely wrong for John’s heart to be so full of warm and fuzzy feelings. Must be the towel. It is amazing how a towel can change things.   
  
Karkat looks warm and fuzzy too—not like fabric, but like something soft and touchable, something to fill your hands with and curl up in and giggle when loose threads tickle you. That thought makes no sense. John clears his throat when he realizes he’s staring at Karkat like a lump and gets to work on the whole movie deal.   
  
Thirty minutes in and Karkat is purring. He doesn’t stop. 

  
0000

  
Of course, after about five hours they have to concede defeat because Karkat is still producing foam at a rapid rate and it’s just more economic to have him do that in the bathtub. He sighs explosively as he goes back into the water, shivers once, and then sighs a lot less irritably. “Won’t keep spilling these out forever,” Karkat murmurs, idly messing with his horns again. “My hide should stop doing that when all the fucked up chemicals in my bloodstream get stable. Which will be soon,” he clarifies to John’s worried look.  
  
“Does it hurt?” John finds himself asking. Karkat’s mouth betrays a moment of surprise which is kind of dumb of him, given that everything has been hurting him lately. He shakes his head after a moment, which makes John’s guts untwist.   
  
“Nah. Makes my skin feel itchy, but that’s the extent of it.” Karkat shuffles a little deeper in the water. “…It’s kind of weird, actually. I was getting used to pain.”   
  
“That’s terrible,” John says bluntly, frowning to show he means it and Karkat’s eyes drift to him lazily.   
  
“I don’t get the human aversion to pain. You’d think it wasn’t natural.”   
  
There is an impressive selection of answers available to that one—it’s survival motivated, that’s because pain hurts, that’s because you’re dumb, but John ends up going with, “We’re still tough, though!”  
  
After all the movies and all the purring, that’s what gets another smile out of Karkat. “I guess you are,” he says, and closes his eyes.   
  


0000

  
This fact comes in handy when two hours later, the bathroom door gets kicked down, and there’s Kanaya. bloody chainsaw roaring in hand.


End file.
